Nevermore
by IttyBittyKittyCuddle
Summary: Shadow, injured, is distracting himself with a bit of poetry when the words come to life and he is tormented by a winged Black Arm.


Shadow stumbled into his apartment, rented when he began working for GUN. There was enough down time between missions that the hedgehog needed something, even if it was to pass out and recover from the various cuts and bruises gained from the latest job. Even the ultimate life form could get injured, and many a broken bone or bruised rib had been nursed back to health in the one-bedroom affair.

That was what Shadow planned on doing at the moment. He had taken one too many blows to the chest, and his ribs were screaming in agony. As he fell onto his bed, Shadow began coughing, his lungs working into a fit from the effort. Gasping for breath, he pulled a white-gloved hand away from his mouth to find a few specks of red on the material.

That couldn't be a good sign.

Red eyes drifted to the window above the bed. The street lights were on; it was midnight. Anyone in their glare below would have been grateful, because the stars and moon were hidden behind angry December clouds threatening snow.

Shadow drifted into a restless half-sleep, unable to find a comfortable position for his abused body. With a start he sat up and began coughing again, grimly noting more flecks of blood on his glove. He should probably get checked out in the morning.

The hedgehog wasn't getting any rest attempting to sleep in his bed. The red and black creature stumbled into his small living room, eyes resting on the book case on the other end of the room. It was barely used, mostly containing instructions for previous jobs with GUN. There were a few books that Shadow kept for pleasure, the most worn being a compilation of Poe's work. The hedgehog grabbed the book, a photograph sliding off the shelf at the same time. Shadow paused, picking it up. It was a picture of himself and Maria on the Ark. The paper it was printed on was faded and wrinkled from being folded and handled so many times before. The black hedgehog had completely forgotten about it.

Shadow sat down on his couch, fingering the picture delicately. His red eyes softened sadly, recalling what he could of Maria. After a few minutes Shadow crumpled up the picture and threw it in the waste basket. He couldn't keep dwelling on the past. Maria had given him a mission to protect mankind, not to mope about her death and spend his days dreaming about being with her again. It was why there was nothing else in the apartment to remind him of her. How that picture escaped his notice, Shadow didn't know.

As the hedgehog opened his book, the lamp fizzed and flickered, threatening to die. The room was cast between light and shadow before that distinct pop when the filament finally broke. Shadow sighed. He could have recited his favorite poem by heart, but there was something comforting about seeing it there on the page, letting him know it had been there for years before, and would continue being there for years after. As the hedgehog got to his feet and shuffled to the kitchen for a light bulb he began reciting The Raven.

"Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door…"

Shadow paused in his recital, light bulb in hand, slowly turning in the direction of his door. His mind must be playing tricks on him; he could have sworn he had heard a noise outside his door. It was the elevator, he told himself, someone at the other end of the apartment getting home a little too late.

"'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door –

Only this and nothing more.'"

Shadow went back to the living room, replacing the light bulb in the lamp and throwing the dead one in the waste basket with the picture of Maria. He opened the book and continued where he had left off.

"Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore –

For the rare and radiant maiden who the angels named Lenore –

Nameless here for evermore."

Shadow felt his eyes slowly drooping as he began seeing double. The words on the page were nearly unreadable. The heat came on, the vents above buzzing to life. Something in the other room was disturbed, some fabric, flapping in the warm air being spewed from the vents. The black and red hedgehog closed his eyes for a moment, mumbling the next verses from memory.

"And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before…"

_Shadow was all alone, everyone else had been evacuated. They had left him to die. There were only so many places the hedgehog could run to before GUN caught up with him. The corridor ahead was suddenly filled with the agents, the men behind were catching up. Tears in his eyes, Shadow realized that his greatest fear was this: being abandoned to die alone. He was so selfish. How Shadow wished Maria was there with him so she could comfort him, even if it put her life in danger. Just one friendly face before…_

The hedgehog was startled awake. He had been dreaming, but why about the Ark? why alone? Shadow's heavy breathing brought on another coughing fit, and as he pulled his hand away from his face the hedgehog noticed grimly the specks of blood turning into small smears on his glove. He should definitely get checked by a doctor in the morning.

Black ears swiveled, catching the noise that had woken the creature they were attached to. The tapping was there again. This time it was unmistakable; the tapping was on the other side of Shadow's front door. It couldn't be anyone knocking. No one had visited Shadow since he had begun renting the apartment. Rouge didn't know where he lived; he wouldn't tell her, and the neighbors were all too scared of him to go anywhere near him. Slowly the hedgehog's heartbeat slowed down as he finished the stanza.

"So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door –

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -

This it is and nothing more,'"

The tapping continued, getting stronger into a rapping, then a knocking. The sound seemed to hammer on Shadow's eardrums so that he was sure his neighbors would wake up and complain. Thinking himself foolish, the hedgehog stood up, fighting another coughing fit, and walked slowly to the door.

"Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

'Sir,' said I, 'or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you' – here I opened wide the door…"

Shadow opened the door, pausing again in his recital of the famous poem. The plain wood door opened into the hallway of the complex, dark with tacky wallpaper, as always. There was a faint odor, but nothing unusual. Some kid must have spilled his dinner.

"Darkness there and nothing more."

The hedgehog stood in his doorway for a few moments, looking down to each end of the hallway. It was a cheap apartment complex; the walls were thin enough that all the sounds from both inside and outside could be heard. Across the hallway someone snored; some fat human that Shadow hadn't bothered to learn the name of. Someone's pet cat mewled further down the hall, and someone tried unsuccessfully to sneak across the squeaky floorboards. Outside a few cars went by. Far away a siren sounded, probably an ambulance. The voices of some drunken teenagers rose from the street directly below.

Shadow's eyes widened and he turned around at the call of 'Maria.' The boys down in the street kept calling out her name. The hedgehog raced to his bedroom window to investigate who exactly they were calling. He opened the window to look down at the street below, but was knocked back into his room by a strong gust of wind carrying with it a winged Black Arm. The impact of falling to the floor had caused Shadow to begin coughing again, and he could feel the shifting fluid that his body was desperately attempting to expel. The coughing fit left his chest aching, and when he sat up the dull pain he'd had when he'd first entered his apartment turned into a sharp stabbing sensation.

The black hedgehog gritted his teeth as he got up off the floor, tears of pain obscuring his vision as he searched for the Black Arm. It was sitting on a coat stand by the front door, perched staring at him. Shadow would have laughed if his chest weren't giving him so much trouble. He leaned against the couch, staring back at the winged beast.

"I thought all of you were gone," Shadow said, his voice rasping a little.

The Black Arm remained where it was, tilting its head to one side.

Shadow brought a hand up to clutch at his side. He had assumed he'd gotten another bruised rib, but now it felt broken. After so many injuries –he was never very careful; being the ultimate life form- the hedgehog's sense of pain had been dulled considerably.

After a few moments Shadow realized that the creature by his door was glancing between him and the open book left sitting on the couch. The creature seemed at least somewhat intelligent.

"Can you speak," Shadow asked it, "do you have a name?"

The leathery beast seemed to hesitate, then croaked one word. Shadow wasn't sure he had heard correctly. "What?" he asked, leaning forward as the Black Arm repeated itself in a rough voice. "Nevermore."

The black hedgehog felt his heart speed up with rage and anxiety. This was absurd! This should be impossible. Shadow wanted to punch the bat-like thing, but as his breathing sped up his lungs began to burn. He was getting less and less air by the minute, and his coughing was becoming more and more feeble.

Shadow slid down the side of the couch so he could sit on the floor and catch his breath. He was dizzy, he felt nauseous, and he couldn't think straight. With head pounding and the room spinning around him the hedgehog leaned his head back against the sofa to look at the beast above his door.

Perhaps he was still dreaming, Shadow thought. He had fallen asleep reading the poem, and now he was dreaming about it. Once he woke up he would go to the doctor and have his chest examined and soon forget all about the strange dream he was having.

Seeming to sense his thoughts, the Black Arm tilted its head again and again croaked "Nevermore."

Shadow attempted to jump up, fists clenched, ready to chase the alien out of his apartment, but his injured chest wouldn't let him. The hedgehog wheezed and gasped for air, falling back to the floor. In the process Shadow knocked over the waste basket, the crumpled picture catching his attention. Not knowing if he had enough breath to stand up without feeling dizzy, Shadow crawled over to the paper and picked it up.

He had resolved to forget about Maria as much as he could, but the picture was a comfort at the moment. Shadow played with the edges, wondering about the afterlife. Surely even he couldn't live forever, could he? If he ever did die, was there someplace for his soul to go? Would it be with Maria? The hedgehog had never thought about such things before.

Shadow's thoughts were interrupted by another "Nevermore."

The creature remained perched on the coat stand, staring at Shadow, watching his every move. The hedgehog glared back, sucking in a few breaths so he could growl at the Black Arm, "What do you mean by saying that to me? You leave Maria out of it, you hear!"

"Nevermore."

Shadow was enraged, but couldn't catch his breath to yell at the creature. He lay there on the floor, coughing, hacking, gasping for breath. He could taste the blood being forced out of his lungs and into his mouth. What the hell had happened to him? He had been barely bruised when he walked in earlier in the evening, now he could barely get enough oxygen to stay conscious!

The hedgehog glared at his unwelcome house guest, expecting the same utterance as before, but nothing came. The leathery thing seemed now to be mocking him with its silence. "You seem to know so much," Shadow growled, barely fighting off another attack of coughing, "why don't you tell me what's going on."

"Nevermore"

Shadow's voice crackled with the liquid in his lungs, his chest aching as his voice grew louder, "Give me a straight answer, you fiend! We're practically brothers, answer me truthfully; is Maria happy, wherever she is?"

"Nevermore."

Through a fit of coughing Shadow managed to yell at the Black Arm, "If that's your only answer then get out! Leave!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"

All it said was "Nevermore."

The creature never flitted, never moved, it still is sitting,

On the dark and glossy coat rack right beside the door;

Its eyes are blank, unmoving, from the form of Shadow, brooding,

Bleeding, coughing, dying, hurting; laying there upon his floor;

His lungs are overflowing, and the blood inside is burning;

As he lays there yearning, yearning;

"Let my soul live, Nevermore."

**A/N**: As I hope you could tell, the plot is based on Poe's The Raven. I'm fraid with trying to stick to my guideline I might've bungled Shadow's personality a bit. That, and I only have an inkling of an idea of how his mind works, mostly gathered from his title game, Wikipedia, and other fanfiction. But I digress.

I'd really appreciate in-depth comments of what you thought was either good or bad, especially about my rendition of the last stanza. I think I did quite well, but I'm terribly biased on the whole subject, having written it.

Thank you fro reading, and in advance for leaving a review. ~IBKC


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